Help Wanted: Heroes treating sidekicks and proteges badly?

[Lorendiac]

I've got an idea for another Superhero Panel Discussion parody in which various "respected" heroes really let their hair down and talk frankly about some of their own peculiar behavior from stories that are actually "in continuity" (or used to be!). I'm not interested in way-out-of-continuity stuff that only happened in a "Worst-Case Scenario Elseworlds tale" or the like.

Right now, I want people to help me think of examples of bad behavior -- negligent, abusive, clueless, wildly hypocritical, whatever -- that various superheroes have shown toward the costumed kids (teenagers or younger, let's say) who have been their "sidekicks," "proteges," "apprentices," "junior partners," "hand-picked successors," or whatever you want to call the relationship in each case.

Example: As I understand it (without bothering to read the Robin series during and after the OYL issues), when Bruce Wayne went off for a year-long round-the-world tour with Dick Grayson and Tim Drake, he apparently completely blanked out on the idea that perhaps he also had some degree of responsibility toward Cassandra Cain, the latest Batgirl, who had worked so hard to follow his lead ever since she met him? If he ever made the slightest effort to find out where that poor girl had gotten to during his own year-long vacation away from Gotham, then I sure haven't heard about it! (And how much concern has he shown more recently, ever since he and Tim came back home and found out she had evidently "gone bad" in the interim, for that matter?)

Anybody got other examples of adult mentors, who really ought to know better, ignoring their responsibilities to the younger generation, or "handling" those responsibilities in an incredibly bad fashion? Feel free to use examples from DC, Marvel, Image, or any other brand of superhero continuity that's included "adult mentors" and "juvenile sidekicks" at some point.

Wait! Come to think of it, you needn't bother reminding me of the horrible behavior of the putatively (or do I mean "putridly"?) heroic mentors in Rick Veitch's "Brat Pack." The Midnight Mink and Judge Jury and the rest were never supposed to be viewed sympathetically by the reader in the first place, so my expectations for them were much lower than they are for Superman or Batman in "regular continuity." I don't want to hear about stories that featured characters who were deliberately created to be merciless parodies of the superheroic "ideals" -- I want stories where the hero is actually supposed to be generally liked and respected by sane readers such as you and I, despite the hero's supposedly minor character flaws! All clear? Okay!

Now tell me about the times when the adult mentors really should have known better than to treat those long-suffering sidekicks so badly!

P.S. For anyone who's interested: I've previously perpetrated two other efforts to show heroes "really telling it like it is." Those panel discussions are archived at:

Superhero Panel: "When to tell your sweetheart your secret identity" (http://www.geocities.com/lwhomer.geo/LorendiacSuperheroWritings/PanelSweetheart.html)

Superhero Panel: "When should we overthrow governments?" (http://www.geocities.com/lwhomer.geo/LorendiacSuperheroWritings/PanelGovernments.html)

[MartinRedmond]

Insert the old cliche:"I won't kill that mass murderer! But I'll kill you (random teenage protege) if you kill him!!!" Because repeat, merciless muderers deserve a fair trial but misguided teens who mean well deserve a swift death sentence in the super hero hand book apparently.

My conclusion is that most comic books are writen by big sadistic jerks.

[foxley]

Top Ten featured a storyline that had a superteam using its juniour sidekicks as part of a paedophile ring.

[earl]

You could have Charles Xavier talking about nurturing young people and then have someone bring up all of the bad things that have happened to students at his school.

Batman's handling of the whole Spoiler and Jason Todd situations should be examples #1 and #2. Mr. Obsessive Compulsive "I've got a file on everyone" knows that neither one will work out but then then he lets them into his circle and things go horribly wrong. The funny thing is that when Todd bit the dust he was a mess, but Spoiler biting it has not seemed to really screw him up much, in fact it seems forgotten. Dick Grayson's exit also seemed to bring out the drama queen out of Batman.

Rick Jones could be also be funny. He has gotten beat up by the Hulk a few times, Cap tossed him to the side out of fear he would die like Bucky and who can explain his relationship with Captain Marvel. Jones got around.

The Punisher also aced one of his only sidekicks. Never mind that he stuck by him in a gunfight and took a bullet, he should not have run when The Punisher told him to run and not been hanging around with govt. agents dealing heroin.

[Lorendiac]

Top Ten featured a storyline that had a superteam using its juniour sidekicks as part of a paedophile ring.

Well, yeah, but it's not like we had ever heard of those people before we read the first season of "Top Ten." I think that falls into the same category as Veitch's "Brat Pack" characters -- so-called heroes who were deliberately created as fall guys and never actually were presented to us as "real good guys" at all.

[Lorendiac]

You could have Charles Xavier talking about nurturing young people and then have someone bring up all of the bad things that have happened to students at his school.

I wasn't specifically thinking of that when I started this thread (with copies on other forums), but I agree that there's plenty of material there. Professor X will definitely have a seat on the panel when I write that discussion! :)

Batman's handling of the whole Spoiler and Jason Todd situations should be examples #1 and #2. Mr. Obsessive Compulsive "I've got a file on everyone" knows that neither one will work out but then then he lets them into his circle and things go horribly wrong. The funny thing is that when Todd bit the dust he was a mess, but Spoiler biting it has not seemed to really screw him up much, in fact it seems forgotten. Dick Grayson's exit also seemed to bring out the drama queen out of Batman.

Which thing do you mean when you say "Dick Grayson's exit"? The story from the late 80s, shortly after the Post-COIE continuity started, that told us how Batman insisted Dick quit being Robin? Or something else?

Rick Jones could be also be funny. He has gotten beat up by the Hulk a few times, Cap tossed him to the side out of fear he would die like Bucky and who can explain his relationship with Captain Marvel. Jones got around.

I've never been a big Hulk fan and I've seen very little of the original stories about Marvel's first "Captain Marvel," so I really don't know a heck of a lot about how either of them got along with Rick. I didn't know Hulk ever beat him up, for instance. Can you remember which issues that would've happened in? (Granted, if Hulk was in his big-green-angry-stupid role at the time, he could argue he wasn't smart enough to really have a clue what he was doing wrong.)

The Punisher also aced one of his only sidekicks. Never mind that he stuck by him in a gunfight and took a bullet, he should not have run when The Punisher told him to run and not been hanging around with govt. agents dealing heroin.

I'm not a big expert on Punisher continuity either. Could you please be more specific? What was this sidekick's name? How old was he? When did this happen?

[foxley]

Well, yeah, but it's not like we had ever heard of those people before we read the first season of "Top Ten." I think that falls into the same category as Veitch's "Brat Pack" characters -- so-called heroes who were deliberately created as fall guys and never actually were presented to us as "real good guys" at all.

Whoops! Sorry. That'll teach me for not reading the original post properly. :o

Possibly more what you're after:

The golden-age Sandman accidently turned Sandy, the Golden Boy into a silicon monster nad then left him imprisoned in a laboratory for decades.

Green Arrow's neglect as he travelled around America with Green Lantern was supposedly one the reasons Speedy became a junkie.

Nobody from X-Factor or the New Mutants bothered doing anything to rescue Rusty or Skids after they were brainwashed by Stryfe into joining the Mutant Liberation Front.

[Lorendiac]

The golden-age Sandman accidently turned Sandy, the Golden Boy into a silicon monster nad then left him imprisoned in a laboratory for decades.

I believe I've read the story that originally established that fascinating fact, but it's been long enough that the nitpicking details are blurred in my mind. I'll have to look at it again (it's somewhere in my collection) to nail down the question of whether or not Sandman actually did something bad when he really should have known better, or was it more in the nature of an unpredictable accident that could have happened to anyone?

Green Arrow's neglect as he travelled around America with Green Lantern was supposedly one the reasons Speedy became a junkie.

People on other forums have also mentioned this. One or two of them also allege that Ollie handled it just terribly after he found his sidekick had a drug problem. I'll have to dig into it. I don't think I've ever actually read a reprint of that story, although I've certainly heard about it!

Nobody from X-Factor or the New Mutants bothered doing anything to rescue Rusty or Skids after they were brainwashed by Stryfe into joining the Mutant Liberation Front.

I was actually buying the New Mutants for awhile before their title was cancelled to be replaced by (groan!) X-Force, and I remember being very, very puzzled by how nobody seemed to have any particular interest in finding those two after they fled a hospital with Stryfe in order to avoid being murdered on the spot by trigger-happy armed guards . . .

About as puzzled as I was more recently by the idea that Batman basically forgot all about Cassandra Cain for a year . . . I expected better of him.

[foxley]

I believe I've read the story that originally established that fascinating fact, but it's been long enough that the nitpicking details are blurred in my mind. I'll have to look at it again (it's somewhere in my collection) to nail down the question of whether or not Sandman actually did something bad when he really should have known better, or was it more in the nature of an unpredictable accident that could have happened to anyone?


From my memory, the problem was not so much the accident (which could have happened to anyone) but that he supposedly sealed Sandy away in suspended animation and retired. Nothing indicates he told his JSA team-mates. I mean, it's not like Dr Fate or the Spectre might have been able to cure Sandy or anything.

[90'sCartoonMan]

You know who used to be pretty horrible? Silver Age Superman. When Supergirl arrived on Earth, he stuck her in some orphanage. He wouldn't let her reveal her presence to the public because he wanted her as a "secret weapon" none of his enemies knew about.

I'm not that familiar with that era, but Action Comics #258 is a good example of how messed up their relationship was. Superman sets up Supergirl by having Krypto discover her, and then he exiles her from Earth for blowing her secret. He lets her come back after a week and reveals it was all a test to see how she'd explain the fact that Linda Lee was missing for all that time.

[Matthew E]

The Tick certainly made Arthur's life difficult, although that was out of cluelessness, and Arthur was certainly no kid.

Mr. Incredible kept dismissing Buddy Pine, the kid who wanted to be his sidekick Incrediboy, and it eventually turned him to a life of crime.

[Alan2099]

Professor X had several moments when he referred to Jean (who was still a teenager) as the girl he loved in the early X-men issues. He never said these outloud, but they were in his thought bubles.

In one of the earliest Captain America stories, Bucky is wrestling on the ground with Red Skull when the Skull rolls onto a needle and dies from the poison. Captain America was watching the whole time and Bucky asked "why didn't you stop this?" Cap says that "I'm not saying." It could just as easily been Bucky that rolled onto that.

[dancj]

Mr. Incredible kept dismissing Buddy Pine, the kid who wanted to be his sidekick Incrediboy, and it eventually turned him to a life of crime.
But he was right to dismiss him.

[Lorendiac]

Professor X had several moments when he referred to Jean (who was still a teenager) as the girl he loved in the early X-men issues. He never said these outloud, but they were in his thought bubles.

Somewhere I once read a comment that this only happened once. I have the first volume of "Essential X-Men" or whatever it's called, reprinting their first 20 or so issues from the 1960s, but offhand I can't remember just when that happened. I can dig into it and see if I can find it happening multiple times . . . although, to be absolutely fair about this, just thinking romantic thoughts about a teenage student/sidekick is not really the same thing as doing something bad to that person . . .

In one of the earliest Captain America stories, Bucky is wrestling on the ground with Red Skull when the Skull rolls onto a needle and dies from the poison. Captain America was watching the whole time and Bucky asked "why didn't you stop this?" Cap says that "I'm not saying." It could just as easily been Bucky that rolled onto that.

I'm drawing a blank on this one. Never even heard of it! Just to make sure I understand you: By "earliest," you mean "earliest earliest," as in "Golden Age," instead of "earliest stories in his Silver Age revival as part of the Marvel Universe," right? That would explain it -- to be perfectly frank, I'm not sure I've ever read a reprint of any Golden Age Captain America stories at all! The oldest stuff I've seen him in is reprints of Stan Lee's stuff about him from the 1960s . . . some of which was retroactively set back in the 1940s during the big war . . .